LX THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



interpret the world in new terms of beauty, to find unique symbols, 

 images and analogies for the varied forms of life. It absorbs science 

 and philosophy, and anticipates social progress in terms of ideality. 

 It is rare, but it is ever present, for what is it but the flickering and 

 pulsation of the force that created the world. 



I remarked a moment ago upon the remoteness of that mood of 

 Matthew Arnold in which he expresses soul weariness and the need 

 of self-dependence. Arnold advises the soul to learn this self-poise 

 from nature pursuing her tasks, to live as the sea and the mountains 

 live. But our modern mood does not seek self-dependence, having 

 no knowledge of that lack, nor does it refer to the unconscious for 

 comfort or example. It asks for deeper experience, for more intense 

 feeling and for expression through action. Science has taught the 

 modern that nature lives and breathes, and in looking at the mountains 

 and the sea, he is moved to feelings based on growing knowledge, 

 unutterable as yet in thought. The modern feels no sickness of 

 soul which requires a panacea of quiescence; he is aware of imper- 

 fections and of vast physical and social problems, but life does not 

 therefore interest him less but more. He has the will to live and 

 persistence to grapple with the universal complexities. This becomes 

 evident in the revolt against established forms and in the intellectual 

 daring that forces received opinion before a new jurisdiction. 



This is a critical age and has its peculiar tone of criticism. Com- 

 pared with other times it more loudly and insistently questions and 

 mocks at the past — the past exists merely "to be the snufif of younger 

 spirits whose apprehensive senses all but new things disdain". Art 

 that takes on new forms has more than ever a critical outlook, and the 

 criticism seems to be based on irritation. The purpose of the effort 

 is not so much, if at all, to create beauty, as to insult older ideas of 

 beauty, to épater le bourgeois, to shock with unwholesome audacities, 

 to insert a grain of sand into each individual oyster shell and set up 

 an irritation, seemingly without any hope of ultimately producing 

 pearls thereby, but with the mere malicious design of awakening 

 protest, the more violent the better. I might continue my quotation 

 of Shakespeare, and say of these ultra modern minds that their 

 "Judgments are mere fathers of their garments," whose constancies 

 expire before their fashions"; but no matter how long the present 

 fashion lasts it, may be treated in retrospect as a moment of irony. 



A virus has infected all the arts; the desire for rebellious, violent 

 and discordant expression has invaded even the serene province of 

 Music. 



